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Shanghai Chaori Solar Energy Science & Technology Co. Ltd. has admitted it won’t be able to make a bond-coupon payment due Friday, setting it up to become China\’s first bond default. The news knocked Chinese bonds.

Solar stocks have stormed out the gate this year and outpaced gains in the broader U.S. stock market, but they took a drubbing Tuesday after earnings from China\’s Trina Solar and ahead of this afternoon\’s report from First Solar.

Market-Vectors Solar ETF vs. S&P 500

U.S.-listed shares of Trina Solar dropped 8% to $4.12 in late morning trade. The company\’s fourth-quarter loss of $1.23 an American depositary share was wider than the loss of 80 cents a share analysts had forecast, according to FactSet.

Due to oversupply and aggressive pricing, Trina Solar\’s gross margin dropped to 4.4% in 2012, down from 16.2% in 2011.

Ahead of its earnings next week, First Solar
was downgraded Friday to underperform at Pacific Crest Securities, which expects the solar-farm developer to issue a disappointing outlook for this year.

\”First Solar faces the reality of fewer large projects and less favorable economics as its pipeline depletes between now and 2016,\” analyst Ben Schuman explained in a research report.

Fist Solar shares fell as much as 3% in early trades. At last check, the stock was down 0.5% at $34.22.

Schuman expects First Solar to forecast a 2013 profit target below the $4.05-a-share analysts polled by Thomson Reuters are projecting. Analysts polled by FactSet are estimating a profit of $4.15 a share for this year. Both estimates exclude charges

A hefty $429 million initial public offering from oil refinery operator PBF Energy Inc. is moving smoothly for its stock market debut on Thursday. It\’ll trade under the symbol PBF on the New York Stock Exchange.

The IPO of 16.5 million shares at an estimated range of $25 to $27 a share \”appears to be on solid footing,\” said analyst Scott Sweet.

The IPO comes after Phillips 66
, the refinery spin-off from ConocoPhillips, has risen to morea than $50 a share from the low $30s it debuted in the spring.

Meanwhile, solar panel installer Solar City cut its estimated price to $8 a share, from its earlier range of $13-$15 a share. Sweet noted earlier this week that SolarCity\’s earlier valuation appeared to be rich.

SolarCity Corp., a solar panel installer and financing specialist chaired by Elon Musk, is facing headwinds as it gets ready to price its 10.7 million shares for trading on Wednesday under the symbol SCTY on the Nasdaq, an analyst said. under the symbol SCTY on the Nasdaq. Price talk around the deal is currently about $10 a share, said Scott Sweet, IPO analyst for IPO Boutique.

Based on the midpoint of its latest price range of $13 to $15 s share, the San Mateo, Calif., firm\’s valuation would total about $1 billion, or a price-to-sales ratio of 8, he said

\”This measure puts it in a category that is higher than any other solar company either upstream or downstream,\” he said.

First Solar Inc.
, the only pure-play solar company in the S&P 500
now carries price-to-sales ratio of 0.8 as of Dec. 3, he noted.

That\’s even after First Solar has jumped about 120% in the past six months after it fell to its lowest level since its 2006 IPO in June.

In the case of Solar City, \”this stock is way too expensive,\” Sweet said.

The closest comp to Solar City would be Real Goods Solar
, which currently traded at 67 cents a share, but offers nearly the same revenue as SolarCity, he said.

First Solar
reports third-quarter results late Thursday afternoon, and its business overhaul now nine months in the making is still a show-me story on Wall Street.

While the company is picking up new contracts to be a builder of massive solar-panel farms, investors are still in the dark as to what First Solar’s real earnings power will be over the next couple year.

Billionaire Ted Turner’s resume already includes launching CNN, loading up on huge tracts of land in Montana, and donating $1 billion to the United Nations. Lesser known, perhaps, is his role as an investor in renewable energy.

Ted Turner and his Turner Renewable Energy unit teamed up for the second time with Atlanta-based power company Southern Co.
to buy a big solar-power farm, the parties said Friday.

For an undisclosed dollar amount, Turner and Southern Co. purchased the 154-acre, 20 megawatt Apex Solar Project in the City of North Las Vegas from Sun Edison, a unit of MEMC Electronic Materials
.

“We created this partnership to explore large-scale solar power generation projects to expand the technology’s viability as a commercial-scale provider of electricity,” Turner said in a prepared statement.

In an illustration of the global market at work in the renewable energy sector, Chinese solar-panel manufacturer Suntech Power Holdings Co.
has supplied more than 12,000 solar panels to Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Soaking it up.

Soaking it up.

For anybody scratching their head on why Uncle Sam bought solar panels from China for a strategically-important military facility, rest assured, the solar panels were made in the good old U.S.A. Specifically, they were built at a Suntech facility in Goodyear, Arizona, that employs 100 people.

It’s just an example of how global the solar panel business has become.

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